How Silicon Valley Nonprofits Lure Tech Donors
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
If anyone knows of a way for a charitably minded data scientist to donate time and expertise, I'd love to hear about it.
> Donors often give to causes they have a personal connection to
> ...recommends not talking about “charity” and meeting immediate community needs
> Groups like food banks, for instance, which provide an essential emergency service to low-income people, aren’t exactly disrupting poverty
I'm cherry-picking but this article paints a concerning picture for the future of corporate philanthropy. I couldn't stretch laffy taffy as far as you'd need to stretch the word philanthropy to include offering job training for work you need workers for.
For example, very few tech donors will touch some of the hard human rights related issues, as they feel it will court controversy or affect their businesses. In the current political climate, it is more important than ever that the future tech version of George Soros emerges. E.g someone who is willing to fund movements and organisations that are willing to fight for the spread of the liberal human rights focused international order.
Another issue that the nonprofit sector really lacks the dynamism of the startup space. There are a significant amount of bloated large NGOs that no longer fulfil their mission effectively and/or at a proper cost model. The effect is tricky as these end up hoovering up funding, even though many are often de facto zombies when it comes to their mission. If they were commercial businesses, many of these would already have been allowed to die, however their large scale and name recognition allows them to access traditional, safe funders.
This effectively blocks out newer, smaller leaner ideas, organisations etc. The concepts of mergers, acquihires takeovers are fairly alien to the nonprofit space. Also many nonprofit startups are trapped by things such as the outlay, funding and costs of applying are very very high (esp compared to the returns in many cases) and many traditional funders have strange stipulations whereby they won't fund organisations unless they are 3-5 years old...Imagine a VC in the Valley saying that!
Out of everything this is what bothered me most because he really can help people and there is already a clear way to do it for someone with his means.
What gives you so much faith in charities?
What do charities know about being efficient that other people don't? Why would they be the only ones with good ideas?
Being a charity is just a way to set up an organisation. Having that status doesn't inherently make you a force for good.
Seems like the charities they've selected are well versed in the issues they attempted to address and have done a lot of work finding the best way to address them. After all, the employees of these charities are dedicating their lives and careers to solving a specific problem.
Note: I am not affiliated with GiveWell or their charities in any way besides having used them to donate.
What gives you so much faith in a random person who happens to have money?
"What do charities know about being efficient that other people don't?"
Most of those people have been working with the problem that the charity is tackling a lot longer than some random rich person. Seriously, this statement sounds so much like the, "What makes you think that people who have actually studied the issues know about those issues" sentiment that is going around in the political sphere, and not in a good way.
"Having that status doesn't inherently make you a force for good."
Neither does being a billionaire.
I'm saying if I was the billionaire and someone criticised me for using my money directly rather than giving to the charity I'd ask how does that person know the charity is better than me. It seems like people are just seeing the label 'charity' and are thinking it's undeniable that the charity have any idea what they're doing themselves.
What causes do you support? If I set up a charity for those causes, took a cut for my salary and distributed the rest of the money as I saw fit, would you give your money to me instead of carrying on as you see fit? But I'm a charity and you're not!
There's nothing in what I've said whatsoever to support this. You've completely imagined that.
What I've said is that I don't think charities know better simply because they're charities. You've sort of transposed that to the opposite side of the argument and are making out that I said another argument, which is 'billionaires know better'.
'I don't think A always knows any better' does not mean 'I think B knows better'.
> assume that charities themselves are an appeal to authority
I do think charities are in general a bit of an appeal to authority. People just say 'charity' and everyone assumes it must be a worthwhile cause and people doing the right thing.
Just because you are have the magic sticker of being a charity does not mean:
- you have worked on a problem for a long time
- if you have been working on a problem for a long time, then that you have made any progress
- that you even understand the problem better than someone else does
- you are working more efficiently than someone else could
- that you are doing anything useful whatsoever
> You're not discussing things in good faith.
Well you're claiming I said "billionaires know better because they're billionaires" which I really think you'd struggle to back up with anything I've said, so neither are you.
It baffles me that people say 'give it to charity instead'. You might as well say 'give it to anyone who can fill in IRS Form 1023', because that's all you're guaranteed to get from a charity.
No. Your entire rant where you mention people who can fill out an IRS form clearly shows that you are not arguing in good faith. You are assuming that we're saying any charity is good, which, if you were listening, no one ever said. Once again, the entire thrust of your argument is, "What makes people who have actually studied things, people who are actually involved with the problem they're trying to solve, think they know more than me, a rich person who's read something on Twitter?"
This is not 'all' that charity means and you're willfully ignoring all the other answers that are explaining it to you.
> It seems like people are just seeing the label 'charity' and are thinking it's undeniable that the charity have any idea what they're doing themselves.
It seems like you are seeing 'charity' and assuming a lot about peoples level of understanding.
> If I set up a charity for those causes, took a cut for my salary and distributed the rest of the money as I saw fit, would you give your money to me instead of carrying on as you see fit?
Yes if you were a qualified skilled professional with more experience and dedicated time to do a better job than me at solving difficult problems. It would be much more effective than me doing it part time while I run another business.
Everyone else is talking about charities that actually do things, not just give money to other people to do things.
You wouldn't give money you hope gets into the hands of a family to a hedge fund, for example--their interests are aligned with financial returns, not giving. A charity is explicitly organized to spend your money in a way that aligns with your values of efficiency.
On top of that, as other posters note, there are well-defined metrics for how well money is spent on administration vs on the charity goal.
https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
Some charities are more effective than others and obviously some are used for other reasons (like avoiding tax which silicon valley knows all about). There are good charities that do good work and if you want to help people they already exist. It's not about "good ideas" but actually having the infrastructure and staff to do something that is known to work (e.g. vaccinating people, educating people, housing people, clean water etc.).
Your focus on "good ideas" is the problem with Silicon Valley style thinking in this area. It's not the case that if only charities had better ideas they'd be more effective. The ideas and organisations are there. What they need is money and resources. That's where people with money, like Elon Musk, can really help.
He could also publicize some charities and not just focus on himself.
In the meanwhile, most of his net worth is tied up in shares of his companies. Selling or directly donating shares means giving up more control, and if he believes his companies will outperform other investments (or even just that it beats inflation), there is a non-clear moral tradeoff even for a strict altruist- do I donate now to solve problems now, or do I hold onto my money so it can grow and solve more problems when I donate later?
He could also use his media reach to publicize some charities and not just focus on himself.